Olympic champions win big with gold medals at freestyle ski and snowboard worlds

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland (AP) - Zoi Sadowski-Synnott was among five Olympic champions who won events at the world freestyle skiing and snowboard championships on Friday, less than a year out from the Winter Games.

On a busy day with eight finals after several events were rescheduled to avoid poor weather forecast for the weekend, New Zealander Sadowski-Synnott added a third world gold medal to the Olympic snowboard slopestyle title she won in Beijing in 2022.

Canada’s Liam Brearley won his first career world championship medal with gold in snowboard slopestyle, leaving Beijing Olympic silver medalist Su Yiming of China to settle for second place once again.

Jaelin Kauf of the United States won an all-American final in the dual moguls, beating her teammate Tess Johnson by 21 points to 14 in the final. Kauf was the silver medalist in moguls at the 2022 Olympics. Dual moguls, where two skiers compete side by side, joins the Olympic program next year.

Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury missed out on a fourth consecutive world moguls title earlier in the championships, when Japan’s Ikuma Horishima won gold.

It was the other way round on Friday in dual moguls as Kingsbury managed to complete a quadruple in that event, beating Horishima in the final. It was Kingsburg’s fifth career world championship gold in that event, and fourth in a row.

Host nation Switzerland celebrated three gold medalists as Mathilde Gremaud won her second world gold medal in women’s ski slopestyle and there were ski cross gold medals for Fanny Smith - who last won a world championship in 2013 - and Ryan Regez.

Norway’s Birk Ruud, the 2022 Olympic big air champion, won men’s ski slopestyle.